For Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, the 11th and final volume in his award-winning Haydn series marked the culmination of 10 years living with the composer. “At the end, I was left feeling quite sad that the journey was over and having to say adieu,” the pianist tells Apple Music. “This annual meeting with Haydn at the Potton Hall studio, near England’s Suffolk coast, had come to mean a great deal to me. I’d rather wished we had another 30 sonatas to go. There are, in fact, six missing sonatas whose whereabouts are currently unknown, so let us hope they will reemerge soon, in time for me to record them!” The thing that Bavouzet will miss above all is the constant sense of discovery. “Every now and then, I would find myself digging a little deeper into the well, and every time a fresh insight would come bubbling up to the surface,” he explains. “Haydn’s rhythmic euphoria, harmonic surprises, and sudden changes of character, from the depths of despair to uncontainable joy, were a constant source of joy. Then there were those special places where I had to improvise a micro-cadenza, as would have been the practice in Haydn’s day. My wife’s profound knowledge of the classical style [Bavouzet’s wife is fellow pianist Andrea Nemecz Bavouzet] was a special source of inspiration on such occasions, as was the tireless support of my regular record producer, Rachel Smith.” For the final volume, Bavouzet has brought his huge experience in Haydn to bear on the extraordinary Capriccio, the longest single movement that Haydn composed for the piano and one of his most harmonically fascinating pieces. And the challenge of how to finish off the series was clearly one that occupied Bavouzet’s thoughts. “At first, I imagined we might finish, logically enough, with the last sonata,” he says. “Yet somehow, finishing the series with a little Allegretto in G Major, composed specifically for a mechanical clock, felt like a humorous touch of which Haydn would surely himself have approved. Having spent 10 years using the sustaining pedal only sparingly in the sonatas, in order to create the right soundworld for this enchanting miniature, I put the pedal down and didn’t lift it throughout the entire piece!” The Allegretto proves a magical ending to a miraculous series.